The annual Bicycle Film Festival has rolled into town for the weekend, starting with a pair of concerts by Brooklyn by way of Italy and Japan art-rockers Blonde Redhead at the Independent. The hip kids were out in force, fixies jockeying for position at the entrance of the club like, well, hipsters trying to squish to the front of the stage at a Blonde Redhead concert. The sold-out crowd gave a warm welcome to local indie rock minor leaguers Thee Oh See, whose tight, noisy set easily outstripped the sludgy tracks on their MySpace page. An enthusiastic man out front assured me that the quartet is on the verge of really blowing up.

Aaron Britt

I got a chance to talk briefly with Simone Pace, drummer for Blonde Redhead before the show and he told me that this isn’t the first time his band has teamed up with the Bicycle Film Festival and there was a homespun Blonde Redhead/Bicycle Film Festival T-shirt at the merch table to prove it. He later lamented the state of his cycling life: “I used to have a beautiful De Rosa road bike. But they stole it. Now I have another one, but I mostly like to ride my motorcycles.” A cruel town, New York.

As they took the stage I noticed that Pace was wearing the official Bicycle Film Festival T-shirt, a gray, V-neck affair with the chain of a bike lock printed around the neck. His band’s set was textured, varied and utterly solid. Some 15 years into their career they continue to walk the line between accessible and avant-garde, and the quality of Wednesday’s show was no shock, considering how good the band is.

After the set a coalition of the willing mounted up and cycled to the afterparty at 330 Ritch in SOMA. All told, Pace summed up the tenor of the evening when I asked him, “Do you like bike?” He replied, “I love bike.”

Aaron Britt

The festival runs through Saturday with an art show on Thursday, screenings at the Victoria Theater on 16th St. in the Mission on Friday and Saturday and then heads to Oakland for bike polo and screenings on Sunday.